Content adaptive binary arithmetic coding (CABAC) is an advanced entropy coding technique that may be used in, for example, the MPEG-4 advanced video codec (AVC) video standard as well as HD-DVD and Blu-ray video players. CABAC is a sequential process that may not allow compression of a second bin (i.e., input bit) until a previous first bin has been compressed or packed. To compensate for this sequential characteristic, a pipelined design may be necessary for fast throughput. Even with a pipelined design, however, there may be difficulty in obtaining a deterministic throughput CABAC design that processes, for example, 1 bin per clock cycle. This shortcoming may be due to limitations on conventional CABAC designs that require renormalization after each bin is processed. This renormalization limitation is computationally expensive and may be due to, for example, the unbalanced nature of these designs. In other words, after most bins are processed only a simple check up is required. Thus, in those instances the slow throughput may not manifest its shortcomings. However, in other instances a condensed calculation is required to perform coding. In those instances, a faster throughput may be beneficial.